Cinema's greatest classics

ajay124 · Nov 20, 2011

hydra said:
BARNES & NOBLE | All Products

All Criterion titles at 50% off. If I had the money...

trinitron · Nov 21, 2011

an extreme level of cinema depicting how far people can go for their loved once!. Bjork & Lars von Trier's magnificent perspective, Dancer in the dark.... i have seen breaking the waves, antichrist and melancholia but dancer in the dark is his best work till date. i think LVT makes love stories, there is nothing greater than love! love can conquer anything!

Dancer in the Dark - Movie Trailer - HD - YouTube

ajay124 · Nov 21, 2011

shaiju_o_thomas said:
Are there any happy / feel good movies that are classics (apart from Chaplin)? Do suggest.

Where do you guys source these movies from? I did like to watch them.

Perhaps the funniest, feel good-est film ever made would be Emir Kusturica's Black Cat White Cat. Kusturica is able to pack more energy, momentum, fun and action into a film, into a single scene, than any other six pack of directors would be able to manage in a lifetime of film making. More or less my favorite director

Black Cat, White Cat Trailer (Black Cat, White Cat [Crna macka, beli macor]) - IMDb

Black Cat, White Cat [1998] [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Bajram Sevredzan, Srdan Todorovic, Branka Katic, Emir Kusturica: Film & TV

Underground [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Miki Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski, Mirjana Jokovic, Slavko Stimac, Emir Kusturica: Film & TV

Life Is a Miracle [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Slavko Stimac, Natasa Solak, Vesna Trivalic, Vuk Kostic, Emir Kusturica: Film & TV

When Father Was Away on Business [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Moreno De Bartolli, Miki Manojlovic, Mirjana Karanovic, Mustafa Nadarevic, Emir Kusturica: Film & TV

I have yet to watch When Father Was Away On Business, but I would rate the other three among the best and most enjoyable films that I have ever watched.

hydra · Nov 21, 2011

^^ To add, nearly every movie made by Aki Kaurismaki would qualify. I like to refer to him as the Mark Twain of the Movies. He has a particular sense of dead-pan humour that I've not seen in any many others/movies. Jim Jarmusch would come close, but then he is a self-proclaimed fan of Kaurismaki, so many of his themes are influenced by Kaurismaki's work.

Kaurismaki is not well know and I don't think his movies are yet considered classics, but I'm sure another 10 years or so down the line they will be!

Of Kaurismaki's movies, I'd suggest the following to start out with:
The Man Without a Past
Ariel
I Hired a Contract Killer

The only one of his movies I didn't quite like was Calamari Union

@ajay, thanks for the links! Looks like we do have similar taste in movies. Some of my favourite movies are in that list!

Criterion is bringing out a BluRay Box set of Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs trilogy. They already have La double vie de Vronique on BluRay. I don't own a Blu Ray player yet, but those will probably be my first BluRays.

ajay124 · Nov 21, 2011

hydra

I have seen Kaurismaki's Crime And Punishment and Leningrad Cowboys Go To America. I enjoyed them although I did not find them very memorable. But I wouldn't mind watching the films you have mentioned, if I ever come across them.

My obsession with building a fresh collection of western classical music is over. No more CD's to be bought! I have begun viewing more films and spending less time listening to music. I have placed an order with Amazon UK for a few Lars Von Trier and Michael Haneke films that I have been wanting to watch for a long time

Ordered:
Breaking The Waves/LVT
Dancer In The Dark/LVT
Europa/LVT
Antichrist/LVT
Code Unknown/Haneke
Hidden/Haneke
The White Ribbon/Haneke

Wishlisted:
When Father Was Away On Business/Kusturica
Satantango/Tarr
The Turin Horse/Tarr
Melancholia/LVT
The Kingdom 1&2/LVT
Manderlay/LVT
The Seventh Continent/Haneke
Benny's Video/Haneke
Funny Games/Haneke
Time Of The Wolf/Haneke
Paris,Texas/Wenders
Wings Of Desire/Wenders
The Wind That Shakes The Barley/Loach

hydra · Nov 21, 2011

ajay124 said:
I have seen Kaurismaki's Crime And Punishment and Leningrad Cowboys Go To America. I enjoyed them although I did not find them very memorable. But I wouldn't mind watching the films you have mentioned, if I ever come across them.

...

Those two movies are not really typical of Kaurismaki's other movies. Leningrad Cowboys... is definitely his style, but he's deliberately trying to be funny there. In his other movies, the comedy is a kind of by product, something that comes out in the form of 1 + 1 = 3.

Crime and Punishment, though a good movie, did not have his usual comedic flair -- it just had the dead-pan approach to life. I'm sure you will really enjoy the rest of his movies! Do watch them

That's really nice list there! I've not really watched a lot of Haneke: only Cache, The White Ribbon & Funny Games, with La Pianiste lying with me in my to-watch queue for ages now.

ajay124 · Nov 21, 2011

La Pianiste lying with me in my to-watch queue for ages now.

hydra

Haneke's La Pianiste, The Piano Teacher, is based on a book by the Nobel prize winning Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek. This film was part of an Isabelle Hupert retrospective held in Chandigarh a few years ago. Isabelle is a great actor and in this film she had a difficult, self abasing, self humiliating role which very few reputed actors would have dared to accept. I have rarely, or perhaps never, viewed acting of this calibre by any actor.

Personally I felt that Black Swan was a reworking of this film, although I may be wrong. The plot may be different, but the self abasement and self injury of the central protagonists in both the films is highlighted against their passion and pursuit of 'pure and uplifting' classical music. Natalie Portman's Nina Sayer's reminded me very strongly of Isabelle Hupert's Erika Kohut. But Black Swan was only mildly interesting, where as La Pianiste is a masterpiece.

And you may find that like Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist, Isabelle Hupert in La Pianiste also makes you cringe

ajay124 · Nov 22, 2011

The International Film Festival Of India begins tomorrow in Goa. I have been a regular for several years but gave it a miss this time. Wish I had gone :sad:

International Film Festival of India

International Film Festival of India

hydra · Nov 22, 2011

Ajay,

Good to know that about La Pianiste. The movie sounds like it's right up my alley! I'll try and catch it tonight.

Over the last 8 months or so, music had completely taken precedence over movies for me. I'd been watching 5-8 movies a week before I got my music kit setup. For the last few months I've been watching just 2 movies or so a week, with the rest of the free time taken up with listening to music. The acquisition of movies continued without letup, so I have quite few in my queue to watch now. Now that the honeymoon period with my music setup is (somewhat) over and now that I've got it in a way that I'm satisfied with, I've started catching up with the movies.

I actually liked Black Swan quite a bit: No doubt, I was influenced a lot by my uh, special interest in Natalie Portman.

I wish I had the time, money and the freedom to travel to watch movies. I've never been able to attend a real Film Festival ever. More than just the movies, I'm sure the atmosphere is electric, and being around fellow movie lovers would probably be a great feeling. My work ties me down physically and my penny-pinching nature ties me down mentally (with guilt)

Maybe when I'm older, richer & wiser...

ajay124 · Nov 24, 2011

A list of Palme D'OR winners since the inception of this prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1955. It would be interesting to watch all the films in a sequence to see how cinema has evolved over the years. A fairly representative list which is mercifully not dominated by any one kind of cinema.

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/assets/File/Web/bloc de droite/Palme d'or-VA_2011x(1).pdf

Festival de Cannes - From 16 to 27 may 2012

ajay124 · Dec 2, 2011

Some good websites for art house cinema. Please add more

notcoming.com | Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Bright Lights Film Journal :: November 2011 | Issue 74

Senses of Cinema

DearCinema.com | Indian Films, Festivals and World Cinema

Directors

FIPRESCI - Festival Reports

Kinoeye | New perspectives on European film

Cinema in Latin America. Latin American and Peruvian movies.

Japan Cinema

Chinese Cinema Page: the index

Russian cinema, movie trailers, posters, movie stills and photos

Russian Film

French Cinema

Films de France - French cinema guide, movie and dvd reviews

german films: Home

ESSENTIAL ART HOUSE: 50 YEARS OF JANUS FILMS (50-DVD box set) - The Criterion Collection

trinitron · Dec 3, 2011

The Tree of Life is a cinematic poem a prayer. it has the epic greatness! one of the most intriguing film in decade unlike anything i have ever seen. i dnt think any movie photographed simple moments of life this beautifully. its a film and a filmmaker Terrance Malick with very grand ambitions. i am not religious but it made me think and feel god and life's creations. it joins the list of my most favorite films.

luckily the film released in theaters but only PVRs I was exited to watch the film because it won best picture at Cannes and was the most talked abt film this year. i remember i used to rush after work give all the shooting requirement's and properties, print Mr. Om Puri's scenes for next day just to catch that 11pm show sleep at 3am and think abt the film, life, until i fall asleep hardly for 4 hrs and back to shooting locations. theaters were almost half full once and almost empty 2nd time, i watched it 2 times i never experienced a film of this scale in my life. its grand every other film feels like negligible when compared. i was an atheist once i felt god for the first time in my life and i saw it on a film. outstanding camera work, extraordinary locations, great musical pieces. Terrance Malick only directed few films in his life ive seen them all except the new world, The Thin red line loved it but i will watch again to truly understand Terrance Malick he is a great director and always had very grand things to say through his films. if i talk abt the story its only about a normal family living in Texas but its not just that. the start till the end of life, birth of the universe, yes there is a 20 min continuous montage of how universe was formed how life on earth was formed how dinosaurs and humans and every single living thing shared the universe and its creations the visuals will take ur breath away its so beautiful. movie talks abt nature and grace where Brad Pit (father) is like brutal nature, Jessica Chastain (mother) is grace caring and loving towards their kids Sean Penn their eldest son played as an adult in flashback. The Tree of life is something more than just a film, its Terrance Malick's best work till date. its the best movie of this year..

The Tree of Life Trailer HD - YouTube

ajay124 · Dec 3, 2011

trinitron

Until the early 80's (while I was still a fan of Hollywood films) my favorite directors were Elia Kazan, Terrence Malick, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Frank Capra, Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola, Robert Altman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sam Peckinpah, Norman Jewison, William Friedkin, Sydney Pollack and Steven Spielberg (primarily for Raiders Of The Lost Ark).

I am not familiar with most Hollywood directors who made films after 1985 because around that time I switched entirely to watching art house cinema from Europe, Japan, Latin America and other parts of the world. Since then my preference for cinema, music and books has been to a large extent Euro-centric. I feel more at home reading sub titles in English with the sights and sounds of Hungary, Poland, Scandinavia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia or Japan unfolding in the background. Although once in a while it is nice to come back to a film where the actors are speaking in Hindi or English

Terrence Malick is a original, intelligent and engaging film maker. Perhaps the finest Hollywood director from the last four decades. I watched Badlands and The Thin Red Line on the big screen without any preconceived notions about the film or the director. On both occasions I was bowled over by the cinematography, story telling prowess and detachment of the films. Detachment. I felt that Terrence Malick had the ability and the inclination to put into practice, the James Joyce dictum that " The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails "

Terrence Malick | Senses of Cinema

The Tree of Life | Film Review | Slant Magazine

ajay124 · Dec 3, 2011

Whenever a film starring Naseeruddin Shah is released on the big screen I feel tempted to go and watch it. For Maqbool, Iqbal, A Wednesday and Ishqiya, I succumbed to the temptation. I gave 7 Khoon Maaf a miss because I don't think I would be able to sit through an entire film which has Priyanka in the lead. Vidya Balan though is a different matter altogether. In Ishiqiya I found her more intriguing than both her male co-stars. I am wondering whether I should go and watch The Dirty Picture

Arguments in favor of watching the film:
Naseer
Vidya Balan
Silk Smitha Biopic

Arguments against watching the film:
Ekta Kapoor
Milan Luthria
Tusshar Kapoor
Emraan Hashmi

ajay124 · Dec 4, 2011

I am an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, will show you a world which only I can see. I free myself for today and forever from immobility. I am in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them..... Freed from the boundaries of time and space I co-ordinate all points of the universe wherever I want them to be. My way leads towards a fresh perception of the world. I explain in a new way the world unknown to you.

-Dziga Vertov

Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera (1929) is an incredible film. So far ahead of its time that it could have been made in 2029 and still be considered avant garde. Do we really need actors, made up stories, and larger than life heroes in cinema? Dziga Vertov did not think so. He felt that cinema had to move away from literature and find its own language. "Down with the fairy tale scenarios....long live life as it is!" Man With a Movie Camera is a silent film without actors or a story. It captures one day in the life of a city. The movie camera watches the city it is filming from a million angles. It also watches the audience which is watching the film. The movie camera has become an eye which sees and reveal more than the human eye. An exhilarating and liberating view of cinema! Cinema set free from the shackles of creating fairy tales.

Consider the tedium of a contemporary film maker who sets out to make an ''entertaining film'. The film begins with a laborious introduction of 'heroes' 'heroines' and 'villains'. These heroes, heroines and villains are then pushed into fictional, fabricated relationships and events. Unlike a book where an author has a surfeit of time and words to build a credible fiction, a film works with far more limited tools and time. Since the story has to be compacted into a watchable running length, everything appears to be rushed and superficial. Lacking the tools and time which literature utilizes to plumb the depths of the human experience, cinematic 'literature' merely floats on the surface. None of the great works of world literature have ever been translated into great cinema. Even a racy bestseller is seldom turned into a satisfactory film. People who have read the book and watched the film usually feel that "The book was better".

In recent times the fascinating imagery of Man With A Movie Camera has been set to music by several musicians. Most of the versions are available on Amazon.

Michael Nyman's - Man with a Movie Camera [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Film & TV

Man With A Movie Camera [1929] [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Mikhail Kaufman, Gleb Troyanski, Dziga Vertov: Film & TV

The Cinematic Orchestra - Man With a Movie Camera re-issue DVD: Amazon.co.uk: The Cinematic Orchestra: Film & TV

Man With a Movie Camera / L'homme la Camra Music Mickael Nyman - YouTube

hydra · Dec 4, 2011

I did finally manage to watch La Pianiste today. It is now my favourite Haneke movie: Intense, edgy and very disturbing.

I did see the parallels with Nina Sayers in Black Swan right away. In fact, other than just the broad relationship, a lot of the subtext/sub-themes related to the mother-daughter relationship in Black Swan which were left hanging, were clearly inspired by La Pianiste. ***SPOILER*** <start>Even the way the character "resolves" the situation is nearly the same.</end>

And yes, I will definitely hold my breath I see Ms. Huppert in the future -- not just because of *that*, but because I think I'll forever see this character first, and not the actress, every time I see her on the screen. She is truly a great actress!

ajay124 · Dec 5, 2011

hydra said:
I did finally manage to watch La Pianiste today. It is now my favourite Haneke movie: Intense, edgy and very disturbing.

I did see the parallels with Nina Sayers in Black Swan right away. In fact, other than just the broad relationship, a lot of the subtext/sub-themes related to the mother-daughter relationship in Black Swan which were left hanging, were clearly inspired by La Pianiste. ***SPOILER*** <start>Even the way the character "resolves" the situation is nearly the same.</end>

And yes, I will definitely hold my breath I see Ms. Huppert in the future -- not just because of *that*, but because I think I'll forever see this character first, and not the actress, every time I see her on the screen. She is truly a great actress!

And yet when the Black Swan Oscar hysteria was peaking last year, no one acknowledged or highlighted the influence of La Pianiste!

ajay124 · Dec 5, 2011

Some classics from the early days (1916-1955):

Intolerance/D.W.Griffiths
The Cabinet Of Dr. Calgari/Robert Weine
Battleship Potemkin/Sergei Eisenstein
Ivan The Terrible 1,2/Sergei Eisenstein
Metropolis/Fritz Lang
Man With The Movie Camera/Dziga Vertov
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc/Carl Theodor Dreyer
City Lights/Charlie Chaplin
The Rules Of The Game/Jean Renoir
The Fanny Trilogy/Marcel Pagnol
Bicycle Thief/Vittorio De Sica
Umberto D/Vittorio De Sica
Children Of Paradise/Marcel Carne
Ugetsu/Kenji Mizoguchi
Tokyo Story/Yasujiro Ozu
Diary Of A Country Priest/Robert Bresson
Rashomon/Akira Kurosawa
Pathar Panchali/Satyajit Ray

intacto · Dec 6, 2011

@ajay jus read thru the pages...amazing work man...lot of interesting movies and info. .though have seen some of them ..thr were many which i have come to know

ajay124 · Dec 6, 2011

Wim Wender's Paris, Texas is a road movie with a strong emotional core. It won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in the 80's. Harry Dean Stanton is outstanding as Travis, a man who after wandering around in the Texan desert for 4 years comes back to look for his wife and child. The Texan landscape is captured beautifully by Robbie Muller's camera. A great script, Ry Cooder's wonderful guitar and Wim Wender's superb direction makes this two and a half hour film a thoroughly satisfying and completely engrossing experience. Looking forward to watching his Wings Of Desire.

****

Wim Wenders | Senses of Cinema

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e590FeeGCM

Cinema's greatest classics

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